Prism was letting a couple of Equestrian shorthairs crawl over her chunky sweater and explore her hair, giggling at how their tiny claws tickled through the layers of fiber protecting her from getting any scratches. "I'm glad Hannibal suggested it, nothing to lift the spirits like kittens. Maybe we should come here more often. Might even do dog walking once in awhile." Prism said before looking over at Tellie and watching her get to know a teeny little puff of fur. "That one's cute, Tellie. She seems to like you."

Tellie nodded absently as the little white kitten tried to climb the sleeve of her hoodie. "Y-yeah, and she's really cute too... Someone's probably adopting her already..." She said sadly as the kitten finally got a grasp on her hoodie and began to climb.

"Actually," Bunny said, leaning over the short wall and startling Tellie. "Nobody's shown any interest in her yet. She's a Munchkin, they don't grow very big. They're sort of like the Corgi's of the cat world!" She added cheerfully. "The only problem is, they have one or two genetic problems... The white coat is an indication, and I don't know if you've noticed her eyes, but they're bright blue." Tellie looked at the exploring kitten, confirming that her eyes were a brilliant color. "Those two things together unfortunately, are indications of a predisposition for deafness in both ears. We're noticing it with her already, she doesn't respond to sound like the others do."

Tellie paused as the kitty climbed her shoulder and rolled into her hanging hood. "Um... Are there any other issues besides her being deaf...?" She glanced at her roommate, knowing about the other girls unfortunate tendency to explode things with loud bangs.

"Well there's always the potential for other issues to show up, no matter what pet you get, but... We haven't noticed any issues with this little one." Bunny said with a shrug before continuing on her merry way. Tellie slowly pulled the puffball out of her hood and held her gently, giggling as she batted at a few loose strands of Tellie's hair. "I think... You're perfect."

Nova finally stood up from under a pile of kittens and walked over to the other two girls. "Oh wow, look at its little bitty legs! Oh, this one is super adorable! What are you gonna name her?" Nova asked, scritching it under the chin. "I've never seen a cat with corgi legs before," she said, giggling. "What I don't get is, why would Dean Hannibal suggest this? She doesn't strike me as the type that enjoys- well, anything, really. Don't get me wrong, this is awesome and all. Just, I dunno, weird?"

Prism shrugged as she crawled over to Tellie and gave the munchkin a scratch. "My Mom's friends with Kerrigan, I think she's just puts work before a lot of things, but she does have empathy and genuinely likes the students that she works with. Plus she studies everything, she probably saw a bunch of research that suggested that Tellie needed a pet. Making students lead happy productive lives is one of her many jobs." Prism said. picking a kitten off her back and cuddling it. "Do you think you've settled on that one, Tellie?"

The morning had been a rather rushed one, Gem couldn't lie, himself and Fire had gone to the doctor's the appointment now seemed a tad superficial, but after having been in company with Longshot for such a long time he had just wanted to make sure, especially after learning of Fire's pregnancy. During all of that, the enchanter had called a couple cleaners to come by while they had been out. For the same reason. It wasn't that he thought Longshot had been covered in diseases and was filthy, it was merely due to the unicorns predicament about having arrived. Different world, different germs and diseases, he didn't want to be caught off guard. Luckily though, today was Saturday, which meant that he didn't need to go into the office. Half of him wanted to go and check the mirror see if it was still reacting, the other half wanted to keep up the defenses at least until the Sisters responded to the message he had sent earlier.

Taking a seat on the couch, Gem sniffed the air, everything smelled clean, but not the usual clean of fresh fragrances, no this was the clean that derived from the absence of anything. The cleaners were certainly efficient with their dragon flames. that much he had to admit.

A series of knocks at the door, roused the enchanter from his rested position, "Fire, I got it." He called out, opening up the door, and to his surprise seeing two members of campus security. "Um, hello?"

"Dr.Shard, sorry to disturb you, we would simply like to ask you a small request." the pegasus continued lifting up a small water bottle in a plastic bag. "Last night at the martial arts meet, the head of the fencing team became very ill, it was later discovered that his water bottle had been tampered with some kind of poison. We were wondering if you could discover what exactly it was. You are one of the leads in alchemy and enchantery after all."

"Uh, y-yeah sure. I'll get right on it. Is he alright?"

He's recovering, nothing fatal but he won't be on his hooves for a couple days. Thanks again sir."

Closing the door, Gem looked at the bag and sighed, so much for restful Saturday

"It smells like a hospital in here" Firesong said as she went into the kitchen to get some tea and a sandwich after the hectic morning. Dealing with morning sickness and doctor's appointments simultaneously was draining, though she was glad that now both were over for the day with no major incident. She went into the living room and set her things down and was about to start on some grading she'd neglected the night before when there was a knock at the door. She took a seat when her husband said he'd get it, but she listened in on what was going on, it could be someone coming to tell her that a sorority party got out of hand and she had some sisters to deal with, or that there was some news about Longshot. Longshot she wanted to hear about, sorority stuff could wait awhile.

The voices at the door didn't say anything about Longshot, and she recognized one of them as that of a security guard which made the sorority stuff a real possibility. She took a sip of tea and ease-dropped with attention, but not a desire to get up and find out first hand what was going on. She caught most of it, there was a poisoning, but it sounded like it either only involved stallions or that Spell had personally ordered an investigation. Either way it meant she was off the hook, but it didn't mean that a poisoning wasn't interesting she'd seen plenty of mares that had been slipped drugs at parties but poisoning seemed to be something out of the ordinary.

"Poisoning?" Firesong asked when Doc entered the room. "That's a new one. Unless you count roofies as poisoning, which they kinda are, though it's really not the drug that's the issue most of the time, it's the motivation which is really sick and...you know, yes, that is poisoning." She shook her head at the tangent. "Seriously though, poisoning seems like a pretty extreme way to win a fencing match."

Tellie stood up, cradling the deaf kitten in her arms. She ignored the potential reasons for Dean Hannibal suggesting a pet, as she didn't want to share that with the other girls. "Yes. This is the one. Um... I-I don't know how to actually... Adopt her. A-and we also need to get everything else, r-right?"

"who is Kerrigan?" Nova asked, reluctantly getting to her feet. "Eh, doesn't matter. So ok, all we do now is fill out some forms with the front desk, they give us her tags with her shot records and stuff, then we can take her home! Though I think that, while you do the forms, one of us should go get her a carrier, collar for her tags, litter box... you know, all the essentials. I've never had a cat, so I don't really know all the things we'll need. Did you wanna come with, Prism?" Nova asked.

Prism nodded enthusiastically. "I'll come, but I think it would be better if we hung around with Tellie. If her kitty's special, then she might need a certain kind of food and we'll want to know what she's been feed." Prism said, thinking through what a cat needed and anything that might pop up. "They'll probably have recommendations for food on a sheet when you go to do the paperwork. Besides, I think it would be nice if Tellie could pick out a collar herself."

"Just what I said. I'm here from another Equestria. It's dead. Well, mostly anyway. Longshot's tone slowly shifted away from casual to quietly biter. Kind of hard to grow food when the water's full of necromantic energies and all."

"I guess winning is just too important to somepony. They're young, time to make bad decisions. That being said they will have to face the consequences for their actions. The sad thing is I only have roughly two or three alchemists in my classes. I certainly hope it wasn't one of them. They all seem like such good students." Doc replied rather mournfully as he walked over to the kitchen. He was going to need the stove for what he was about to do. "So we know it was a poison so now to find what exactly it was. That way, we can find out the ingredients and move on from there." the professor gave another sigh, "I joined this university to be a professor, not a forensic officer. Sorry darling, but I may need the kitchen for awhile. That isn't a problem is it?" He asked, it hopefully wouldn't take too long, but again it all depended on what was actually in the bottle.

"Nope, not a problem at all, I'll order take out for dinner, take all the time you need." Firesong said, moving from her chair into the kitchen and taking a seat on one of the stools at their counter island. "How are you going to find out the ingredients after you take the water out? Do you use magic? Do we have a book about that? Is there a way to separate the different powders?" she asked, leaning over and watching curiously.

White Mocha wrote:"Just what I said. I'm here from another Equestria. It's dead. Well, mostly anyway. Longshot's tone slowly shifted away from casual to quietly biter. Kind of hard to grow food when the water's full of necromantic energies and all."

"I want to think you're messing with me... But I'm pretty good at reading faces..." Storm shakes his head, and shrugs, "Well, you're in for a hell of a treat, then. This is my favorite food on the planet." As they sit there, waiting for the food to arrive, Storm sips his coffee, heavy on the sugar. Is this guy for real? he thinks to himself, He's convinced of it... but it sounds crazy... Then again, magic happens, there's stranger things that have happened... But a different world?Deciding that it doesn't matter for now, he grins, "So, tell me a little about yourself?"

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.-Albert EinsteinLiberty's theme

Longshot smirked, leaning back. "I've got at least a decade worth of stories to tell, I'm a pretty broad topic." He pondered where to start. "I was born into... technically a mercenary group called the Night Watch. I've been traning for pretty much my whole life, and I'm a natural talent with firearms as it is. I was probably one of the deadliest ponies in the wastes by the time I left. For all that was worth... He sighs, "Anything in particular you'd like to know?"

Tellie nodded at Prism's suggestion of sticking together. "I-I'd like to be able to pick everything out myself... And it would be good to have help for it, I don't really know what she needs..." The shy girl stood up and looked around, trying to catch Bunny's attention so that she could adopt her first pet.

"Well," Gem began, pouring the contents of the water bottle into the empty pot. "First we need to find out what the potion or poison in this instance was originally, from that we can narrow down what ingredients could be used to make it. Unfortunately, I can't really get the potency from these tests. I'd need to talk to the victim for that and even then that would be a hefty amount of theoreticals." the enchanter explained twisting the nobs on the stove, he waited for the burners to heat up. All the wall, he took the now empty water bottle to the sink, filling it, he closed the bottle and shook before pouring it into a series of smaller cups. "There is some magic but most of this is simply cross referencing the product once identified and a bit of guessing at the ingredients."

Looking at the pot, he watched as the tainted water began to boil. He needed the entirety of the water to boil away before he could move onto the next step. Looking back at the glasses of the diluted solution, he floated them onto the table, followed shortly after by his journal as it opened up onto a chapter of potions. "Alright well, first things first I need to brew up what I think could be its counter. Magic has a way of not liking to be near its opposites, they tend to simply negate one another, leaving a neutralized product. Not harmful or hurtful, similar to water but with terrible taste."

Looking over the pages of the book he took note of the various possible potions, mentally checking off what couldn't be possible. The officers had said that the victim had felt weak, which meant utility potions such as darkvision or the like weren't possible. No this potion more than likely fell into the category of harm or negatively charged. Which meant that curing potions were what he was looking for.

Firesong watched intently as her husband did his magic, alternating between listening as he talked and grading some paperwork as he read about the counter potions. He'd just finished his last explanation when she felt a buzz in her pocket. She read the text from Kerrigan and replied back asking where she needed to go and got up from the stool and gave Doc a peck on the cheek. "Kerrigan needs me, something urgent came up that I need to help out with. I don't have any details, but if it doesn't go too long I'll bring home dinner. I promise to stay safe if you don't get yourself poisoned." And with that she grabbed her jacket and flew out the door towards campus.

Longshot nods. He can see Storm's put off though and looks to change the topic, a bit at least. "When I had to... Though I wouldn't call most of them ponies. They were hardly the most dangerous things I've faced though. Remind me to tell you about the time I killed an insane AI by relentlessly asking it questions.

After signing all the papers and waiting around as things were processed and approved, Tellie walked out of the shelter with her new kitty, Van Gogh. On Prism's advice, they headed down the street, little Van curled up in the pocket of Tellie's hoodie. Prism had mentioned a local shop that might be a better option for buying supplies for the tiny kitty than the bigger chain stores, and Tellie tended to agree just on principle. The shop came into view after just a few minutes walk, and Tellie was hopeful. The windows were plastered with posters for the type of food sold there, most Tellie had never heard of but nearly all of them boasted of their all-natural and high-quality ingredients. The glass storefront was partially obscured by a row of tall cat trees, all with signs proclaiming them to be 20% off, which seemed like a pretty good deal to Tellies mind. Though perhaps not ones so tall, they did live in dorms for now after all...

Entering the store and noting the beeping sound the doors made when they opened, Tellie looked around for any employees. As if on cue, two ponies appeared from the back of the store; one, a very tall Earth Stallion hefting three massive bags of dog food on his shoulders, followed by a diminutive Unicorn female, clearly struggling with two identical bags. Noticing the trio at the front of the store, the stallion motioned to the mare and plucked the bags from her shoulder with ease, sending her to the front. "Helloo!" the mare cried as she hurried to the front, a big smile on her face. "Sorry about that, we just got an order in, what can we help you ladies find today?"

Tellie reached into the pocket of her hoodie and pulled out the kitty, who seemed very confused at being woken up. "I-I um... J-just adopted this little girl... I-I've never had a pet before, s-so I'll need some help..."

The Unicorn cooed in delight when she saw the kitty, and waved over the stallion, who had a similar reaction. "Oh, she is precious! White Munchkin, by the look of her... At least partially deaf?" After receiving confirmation, he and the mare nodded."Thought so. So you'll want a collar for her, probably one with a bell. All our cat collars are breakaway ones, so on the off chance she gets it stuck on something she can get loose. You'll need a litterbox, some litter, dishes, food, toys are a good idea as are treats... Got anything else, Mars?""Maybe a tag? Possibly a carrier, some places won't let you just carry a kitten around."

"Oh good, that makes the carrier thing so much easier! See, there aren't all that many laws on support animals, and the ones there are are pretty vague. Legally speaking, the only questions that are allowed to be asked are 'Are you disabled?' and 'Is this your service animal?'. Anything beyond that counts as harassment and discrimination. So you likely don't even need the carrier, if she'll be your service kitty then you have a right to take her anywhere. As for the rest, we'll show you our cat section and we can give you some advice if you'd like. Though your friends might be able to help too," She said, turning to Prism. "You guys are students, right? LU? I'm in your dad's class, I think, he's mentioned you having a cat and I think I've seen you in before. If you'd rather give the advice, feel free; we don't want to be too pushy."